Best movies like Pawno

The people of Footscray are battlers and so is their football team. The 'mighty' Bulldogs haven't won a premiership since 1954. The club is close to broke and the AFL keeps trying to kill them off for the sake of the national competition. Year of the Dogs is a documentary following the fortunes of the Footscray Football club, its players, fans and staff as the club struggles to survive the 1996 Australian Football League season.

In a sweeping tale that spans 1000 years and multiple generations – from the distant past to the 19th century, the present day and a strange, dystopian future – this landmark collection traces the collective histories of Indigenous peoples across Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. Diverse in perspective, content and form, traversing the terrain of grief, love and dispossession, they each bear witness to these cultures’ ongoing struggles against patriarchy, colonialism and racism.

Rowland S. Howard, the Primitive Calculators, Ollie Olsen, Phillip Brophy and many others proffer their recollections and air their animosities in a tribute to the underground music scene of '77-'81 in Melbourne, Australia. This is a warts and all look at the Melbourne underground music scene of 1977 to 1981 that spawned the likes of Nick Cave, Rowland S. Howard, Ollie Olsen, The Birthday Party, the Primitive Calculators, The Ears as well as venues such as the Crystal Ballroom and others that fostered what became known as the Little Band scene.

Steve liked Celia from the moment they met. But following a clash with her boss, Raelene Beagle-Thorpe, Minister for Employment, he finds himself on national television branded as Australia's biggest dole bludger. Now Steve has to prove to Celia, to himself, and to the whole country, that there's more to him than meets the eye. With a little help from his friends, he might just do it.

A story based on the great Melbourne bookie robbery.

A woman moves away from her boyfriend because she suspects his feelings towards her pre-teen daughter. He tries to find them in the sordid side of Melbourne.

Amy's father, Franco, was a popular rock musician accidentally electrocuted while performing on stage. The psychological trauma leaves Amy mute and deaf. So the 8-year-old is brought by her mother, Tanya, to Melbourne to diagnose the reasons for her continued silence.

Joshua “J” is taken in by his extended family after his mother dies of an overdose. The clan, ruled by J’s scheming grandmother, is heavily involved in criminal activities, and J is soon indoctrinated into their way of life. But J is given a chance to take another path when a cop seeks to help him.

At the heart of this true story is Damien Oliver, a young jockey who loses his only brother in a tragic racing accident, hauntingly reflecting of the way their father died 27 years earlier. After suffering through a series of discouraging defeats, Damien teams with Irish trainer Dermot Weld, and triumphs at the 2002 Melbourne Cup in one of the most thrilling finales in sporting history.

The place is Melbourne, Australia 1978. The punk phenomenon is sweeping the country and Dogs In Space, a punk group, are part of it. In a squat, in a dodgy suburb, live a ragtag collection of outcasts and don't-wanna-bes who survive on a diet of old TV space films, drugs and good music. And the satellite SKYLAB could crash through their roof at any moment...

On Australia's most controversial national holiday, the lives of three Australians from diverse cultural backgrounds will collide, illuminating contemporary issues of racial tension and national identity that simmer beneath the surface of modern Australia.

Dawn! is a 1979 Australian sports biopic about the three-time Olympic gold medallist swimmer Dawn Fraser.

Nineteen-year-old Ari confronts both his sexuality and his Greek family. Ari despises his once-beloved parents, former radical activists, for having entombed themselves in insular tradition. Ari is obsessed with gay sex, although he does make an unenthusiastic attempt to satisfy the sister of one of his best friends. While all of this is going on, he's facing problems with his traditional Greek parents, who have no clue about his sexual activities.

2 Men, 2 Dicks, 2 much spare time

The story of Michelle Payne, the first female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup.

A group of lifelong friends reunite to celebrate a special birthday, with Sydney's iconic Palm Beach providing a stunning backdrop for the unfolding drama. The good times roll, with loads of laughter, lavish meals, flowing wine and fantastic music, but slowly tensions mount and deep secrets arise.

Coming-of-age story about an Italian-Australian teenager making his way in the world.

Manos, a Greek school teacher, is forced to travel to Melbourne, Australia when the man who murdered his grandfather 57 years ago surfaces there. While the reluctant Manos is tutored in the art of revenge by old friend Stephanos, he also attempts to patch things up with his former fiance Nicki.

Phar Lap, the big bold chestnut reigned as the king of the turf in the depression that gripped Australia of the 1930s. From his humble beginnings the New Zealand bred horse raced on to become the hero of a nation.

A boy climbs an unsteady path to adulthood under difficult circumstances in this drama from Australia. Shaun (Kane McNay) is a teenager growing up in a run-down suburb of Melbourne. His father Sam (Brett Swain) is in prison, while his mother Jenny (Nell Feeney) is too lost in her problems with alcohol to provide much guidance for her children. Left to his own devices, Shaun commits petty theft, smokes pot, and deals drugs to his friends as they hang out at the nearby shopping mall. Shaun seems unable to reach out to anyone, not even his girlfriend (Lauren Hawker) or Darren (Brett Tucker), a social worker eager to help him. When his father is released from prison and brings his mistress to the "Welcome Home" party Jenny throws for him, Shaun comes to realize that if he is ever to resolve his problems, he will have to do it without the help of his family. Mallboy marked the feature film debut for writer/director Vincent Giarrusso.

Follow several talented members of the ensemble as they gather in locations across the world, exploring the ways art can both preserve traditions and shape cultural evolution.

ONE PUNCH is a gritty, teen drama about Matteo Mercado, a young Italian Australian man on the cusp of adulthood, struggling in his final year at high school and trying to hold on to the friendships and innocence of his youth.

Tony Stilano and Trev Spackneys both own, live over and work in adjoining take-away fish shops in Melbourne. Although they have fallen into a habitual rivalry based on a cause long forgotten, the pair unite when the multinational fast-food outlet "Burgies" unveils a new store directly opposite the twin fish & chips shops.

A hybrid doc/narrative following Tony winning performer and comedian Sarah Jones. As a mixed-race Black woman in America, Sarah, alongside the multicultural characters she's known for, explores her own personal relationship to one of the most relevant issues in our current cultural climate: the sex industry, and the surprisingly diverse range of people whose lives it touches. Through interviews and monologues, this film poses the question: how can we as a society have a healthy relationship to sex, power, race and our economy, without exploitation or stigma? The goal is not to prescribe solutions, but to highlight the human faces and voices at the center of this subject.

Stork is a gangly young man, a virgin with an overactive imagination who thinks he’s a revolutionary. Bored with a design job at General Motors Holden in Melbourne, he drops out and moves into a share house with his mate Westy. He daydreams his way through life, bungling job interviews, upsetting ‘respectable’ people, and getting drunk. The only girl in the house, Anna resists Stork’s advances, because she’s already involved with the other two resident males, Tony and Clyde. But when she becomes pregnant and Clyde and Anna decide to marry, Stork, Tony, Clyde and Westy are shocked when they realize that either one of the foursome could be the father. Then the fun begins....

An aged couple decide to move from Melbourne to north Queensland.

After years of having her letters to her estranged father come back as undeliverable, a young woman takes a job at a Dead Letter Office. She hopes to figure out how to locate her father. Unexpectedly, she finds a potential romance and begins to learn more about herself.

The Chocolate Factory takes viewers from the sugarcane fields of Queensland to a dairy farm in Tasmania before revealing the slow journey of millions of Easter eggs and bunnies inside the Cadbury factories in Hobart and Melbourne.

A seventeen-year-old boy struggles to understand and embrace his sexuality as he comes of age in the working class suburbs on Melbourne's edge.

What do a young graffiti artist, a middle-aged widow, a teenage poet, a vampire, and two lovers stuck in separate timelines have in common? Though their paths don't always cross, their lives unfold in Brooklyn's vibrantly multicultural neighborhood of Bushwick, which becomes a distinctive character that ties together these six diverse stories about the power of unconditional love.

A successful Australian writer discovers he has cancer and returns home to Melbourne to be with his estranged wife and daughter.

The story of a young cane farmer's daughter from Fiji who marries a rich Indo-Fijian-Australian citizen and moves to Melbourne, Australia to live with him and his family. This is the story of her trials and tribulations.

Tuuli grows up in an oppressively religious and abusive family in Finland. To escape from the shadow of her angelic twin sister she travels to Melbourne, Australia. Curious of sexuality, she becomes a nude model for art classes. Her innocent surface reveals sordid cracks as she sets about exerting her twisted version of righteousness.

Set in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, MUTT follows Odette Harker as she comes to terms with her first pregnancy. She had a rough upbringing, and she now looks to her conservative in-laws for guidance on parenting. But when a robbery occurs at the family’s building company, the couple’s dog Barney goes missing as well. Dog fighting is prominent in the area, so Odette secretly goes against the families wishes, to infiltrate the dangerous underground world to save her dog from a torturous death.

From the Australian underground comes a dynamic gothic original. Z and X are vampires bound by love and driven by their lust for blood. Together they stalk their unsuspecting prey in the dark streets and back alleys of Melbourne, but tonight they aren't the only killers lurking in the shadows. A moody and atmospheric thriller, A NOCTURNE: NIGHT OF THE VAMPIRE is a sophisticated reworking of the vampire genre with film noir stylistics.